Message telling about the kidnapping of Lindbergh Baby. State troopers search in adjacent woods for the baby. Clues are looked during the search for the infant. Suspects are questioned and autos are inspected. Recording of the baby seen. Ladder which was used for the kidnapping and footprint of kidnapper seen. Parents of the kidnapped baby seen. Message received from the kidnapper.

Famous passengers aboard ocean liner SS Manhattan (later USS Wakefield during World War 2) in the United States. Flashbacks show USS Manhattan being christened by Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt on 5th December, 1931. It is seen being launched from New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden New Jersey. View of maiden voyage on 10th August,1932, with passengers boarding the ship. It leaves a port for her first trip to Thailand, England, Germany and France. The passengers dance aboard the deck of SS Manhattan. Passengers including Babe Ruth, Jimmy Walker, Glenn Cunningham, and aviator Douglas Corrigan ("Wrong Way Corrigan") seen aboard the ship.

'Retrospect' about the events that led to the present pattern of life in the United States. Host Douglas Edwards, an American television anchor speaks about the past events in America. Crowd of unemployed men gathering in bread lines after the 1929 crash and subsequent Great Depression. A man near a box of apples. The U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addresses a gathering. The kidnapping of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., the son of the aviator Charles Lindbergh in 1932. Bruno Richard Hauptmann, a German carpenter who abducted the child during the trial. The congressmen at the formation of the Lindbergh Law. Newspapers describe the apprehension or death of notorious mafia gangster criminals, such as Dutch Schultz and Baby Face Nelson. Huey Pierce Long, Jr. a American politician addresses people. Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia appeals to the League of Nations, after his country is attacked by Italy under Mussolini. Adolf Hitler stands. Troops of the German army parade. Scenes from the Spanish Civil War in 1936-1937 as Spanish national forces battle against fascist rebel forces. Spanish Troops fire 75mm field artillery pieces. Bombs being dropped on the buildings. Spanish soldiers marching during the civil war. The Hindenburg disaster takes place on May 6th 1937: The German airship LZ 129 Hindenburg catches fire over the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Manchester, New Jersey. Amelia Earhart the first woman aviator to fly solo holds flowers and is surrounded by people. She went missing in 1937. Cowboy philosopher Will Rogers, alone and with U.S. Vice President John Nance Garner and with aviator Wiley Post (who had patch over one eye). King Edward VIII of Great Britain, abdicating the throne for "the woman I love." People at the German-American Bund Nazi sympathizing gathering including the subduing of objectors on stage, in Madison Square Garden, New York. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, returning from meeting with Adolf Hitler in Munich in 1938. View of Adolf Hitler. German tanks on parade in World War II. an array of artillery guns on display. Railway guns being fired in WW2.

Hard times in the Great Depression led to formation of The Bonus Army. American veterans of World War 1 march on streets of Washington DC, carrying a large poster demanding immediate cash redemption their "bonus" service certificates awarded by Congress in 1924 (but not lawfully payable until 1945). Army Chief of Staff, General Douglas MacArthur, ordered by President Hoover, to clear the Bonus Army encampments, is seen standing in a street surrounded by several U.S. Army troops. People watch from sidewalks as a contingent of U.S. Army cavalry rides down the street. U.S. Army M-1917 tanks roll down Pennsylvania Avenue in July 1932. Bonus marchers and others watch from Lafayette Park in background. Scene shifts to the 1932 Democratic Party Convention in Chicago Stadium, Chicago, where delegates cheer after nominating Franklin D. Roosevelt as their Presidential candidate. Roosevelt seen waving from the podium. Migrant farm workers seen at temporary, dilapidated dwellings in close quarters, and sitting at a campfire, some with sad and desperate faces. Migrant farm workers' cars on the road, piled high with family belongings during westward migration. Migrants riding atop an open railroad freight car. Two men share a copy of the "Epic News" newspaper (published by supporters of Upton Sinclair and the End Poverty Movement in Los Angeles and central California). Narrator describes programs of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Construction workers ignite demolition charges during construction of Boulder Dam (aka Hoover Dam and officially so-named in 1947). Glimpse of President Roosevelt at the site in an open car, for its dedication on September 30, 1935. Construction workers engaged in building the dam. Another shot of President Roosevelt in his open car. Towers being erected to carry electric power from the dam's hydroelectric generators. President Franklin D. Roosevelt smiling broadly at the formal dedication ceremony, September 30, 1935. Controlled discharges of water through the dam. Views of the Boulder Dam hydroelectric generating station. Oil well rigs or oil derricks at work during construction at night. People at work in fabric mills or textile mills, and in a print shop

The fourth presidential election debate held between Democratic nominee Senator John F. Kennedy and Republican nominee U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon in in New York, United States on 21st October 1960. NBC News correspondent John Chancellor asks a question to Senator Kennedy in relation with U.S. relations with the Soviet Union. Correspondent Chancellor asks if Russians have resumed testing of nuclear devices as per news from Atomic Energy Commission of Washington and if the U.S. would resume its own nuclear testing in 1961. Senator Kennedy replies to the question and says that the next President of the United States should make one last effort to secure an agreement on the cessation of nuclear tests. He mentions the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments from 1932-1934 held in Geneva, Switzerland. Kennedy says that he believes the effort should be made once more by who so ever is elected the President of the United States. Senator Kennedy says that if they fail in making the effort, the responsibility will be clearly on the Russians and then they'll have to meet their responsibilities for the security of the United States, and they may have to test underground. He says that there may be testing in outer space. Senator Kennedy says that he is most concerned about the whole problem of the spread of atomic weapons. ABC News correspondent Quincy Howe asks the Vice President to comment. Vice President Nixon says that the Soviet Union is filibustering. He says further that the elected president should immediately make a time table to break Soviet filibustering.